


Through

by Chronolith



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-29
Updated: 2010-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-08 09:59:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chronolith/pseuds/Chronolith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to relearn the basics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the time-skip.

The bark dug into her knuckles, gouging bloody lines in her delicate hands. Hands too delicate for a ninja; too delicate to hang onto anything that really mattered to her. Tears that she hated more than anything else about herself started to well once more in her eyes.

Her body followed the rhythm of the routine she had repeated for years--punch, punch, left round house, left snap kick, right round house, right snap kick--even as her mind ran over and over that last night, and this morning. She slammed her hand into the wood harder to make it hurt more, so that the sound of crunching wood masked the not quite sobs. Tried not to think of all the times that they had called her name, muttered it, growled it, whined it, sighed it. Tried not to think about how completely and totally alone she was. Tried not to think about how she had failed them no matter how much she struggled and bled. Tried not to think about how she was just not enough. Never enough.

_Sakura._ Face turned away, hand held palm up close to the body--hesitant and wary.

_Sakura-chaaaan._ Eyes too young, too bright to belong to someone so ... abused. So eager for her attention.

_Ne, Sakura-chan._ A thousand stupid, silly, reassuring comments. _Oi, Sakura._ Impatience and unwavering strength, faith never ever spoken. _Sakura, Sakura-chan, neee Sakura-chaann, Sakuuurraaa, Sakura._

_ **Sakura** _

"Think through."

She tenses as gentle hands make minute corrections to her posture and her wrists. Pressing against her hips--making her lead with them. Cocking her wrist so that it turns a little less in the chamber and a little more just before impact. Hands more callused than her own slide up her arms, correcting her tendency to hyper-extend her elbows, pressing down on her shoulders so she can't hunch. Sandled feet nudge her own a little farther apart, making her stance lower and more balanced. A calm voice above her ear, slightly alcohol-tinged breath moving the hair near her ear. "Think through."

She knows to think through the target. She already knows. She wants to cry with the frustration of all the things she knows and can't seem to do right. She knows to think through. It's something that they learn almost as soon as they can walk. Chamber your fist a little above your hip, start with your body and not with your arm, use the force of the movement and not just your own strength, turn your fist right at impact, and think through the target. This is something that she knows. She wants to snarl it, but the frustration and the anger isn't helpful.

She hits the tree a little more solidly, with a little more force, leaving a satisfying three-foot in diameter dent in the trunk.

Her teacher laughs softly, so softly. "Better. Think through." Hands on her hands. Calluses rubbing across the open cuts on her knuckles, pressing her fists into tighter balls. "Think of your chakra here," a little press on hard ball of her fist, "and then think through."

She lets the chakra build a little more--feeling the hot, heady pulse of it flow through her body and the pinpoint of it in her fist. Feels the pulsing lines of it through her body, measures the precise amounts of it at each point in her knuckles, savoring the feel of it. She remembers when she first felt her chakra, every psychic ounce of it, for the first time and her heady glee at being able to just know exactly how much was there, and exactly how much she needed.

She lets form a little more, tiny eddies of energy, at the two lead knuckles, and then she throws that punch with her body and her frustration flowing forward. And she thinks **through.**

The tree explodes into a shower of toothpick-sized slivers and rains them down on top of her head. She stares at the empty space and the shattered remains, and then she turns to look at Tsunade who is idly crushing the remains of a cigarette into the ground with her heel. Tsunade smiles sweetly at her. "Better."

Tsunade runs her hand over Sakura's hair, tugging it into little spikes in the front. "Next time, think through."

Sakura opens her mouth to respond. To say that she knows that. But that she's never made a tree explode before. That she's never done anything that impressive before. "But I know that."

The Fifth cocks her head to the side with a slight smirk curving her lips. Sakura thinks, for a moment, that Naruto is very much a boy if he cannot see how very much a woman her teacher is. Tsunade taps Sakura's nose gently. "Maybe, but you've never felt it. And you weren't ready to." Tsunade's gaze becomes distant and Sakura is pretty sure that whatever Tsunade is seeing it isn't the pretty little forest outside Konoha. "Medical ninja, and ninja with more than just regular jitsu have something ... different about them. They have something important."

_Sakura_

_Sakura-chan!_

_Oi, Sakura. Neeee Sakura-chan!_

She nods, her throat tight. She thinks maybe she understands that. Now

Tsunade crosses her arms under her breasts (not that Sakura notices. Really) and mock glares at her. "Besides, you should have said: "I already know that, Tsunade-shishio."

Sakura smiles, feeling shy but pleased--that maybe things won't be quite so bad. "Yes, Tsunade-shishio."

"Better. Next time, you really need to focus on thinking through."

Sakura has a feeling that Tsunade is not just talking about the punches.


End file.
